


I Like To Keep My Issues Drawn

by quelleheureestil



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - Royalty, King Derek Hale, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Prince Stiles, basically pre-slash but kind of not, give me a break haha, it's been a while since i posted last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 20:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quelleheureestil/pseuds/quelleheureestil
Summary: “I don’t know what you want from me,” Stiles hears through the heavy wooden door to his father’s office. His ear is pressed close to the lock in the hopes to hear more, but all that comes through in response is a series of low rumbling noises.It makes sense that territory negotiations have to take place behind closed doors. What doesn’t make sense is the fact that Stiles isn’t on the other side of the closed door. He has some good and valuable insight! He could help! Probably. He doesn’t exactly know what the negotiations are about, but that’s why he’s crouched here: reconnaissance. The best defense is a good offense and all that. Or the other way around. Whatever.Or the one where no one has a clue as to what's going on, Stiles is a little too blasé with his magic, and what the fuck is up with the Argents?





	I Like To Keep My Issues Drawn

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy! This was a doozy. I definitely did not expect it to get so long haha. Massive shout out to the Sterek Reverse Bang for the fest. It was a lot of fun, and I'm happy I got to participate. 
> 
> Also, massive props to [hd-hale](http://www.hd-hale.tumblr.com) for the [artwork ](http://www.http://hd-hale.tumblr.com/post/161510833754/first-piece-of-art-for-the-sterekreversebang). He's massively talented; go check him out.
> 
> Big thanks to my beta [myblackeyedboy](http://www.myblackeyedboy.tumblr.com). Thanks for dealing with my last minuted-ness and what not haha.

“ _I don’t know what you want from me,”_ Stiles hears through the heavy wooden door to his father’s office. His ear is pressed close to the lock in the hopes to hear more, but all that comes through in response is a series of low rumbling noises.

It makes sense that territory negotiations have to take place behind closed doors. What doesn’t make sense is the fact that Stiles isn’t on the other side of the closed door. He has some good and valuable insight! He could help! Probably. He doesn’t exactly know what the negotiations are about, but that’s why he’s crouched here: reconnaissance. The best defense is a good offense and all that. Or the other way around. Whatever.

So far, all he knows is that the King from the Hale territory requested an audience with his dad a fortnight ago. They showed up last night. There was the ceremonial welcoming feast in which Stiles was sequestered to his father’s side the entire night while tall, dark, and broody King Hale stuck to sitting with his people a little farther down the table. For the entire night. Talk about a buzz kill.  

The Hales are an interesting bunch. A few years back, there was a whole brood of them. Or, pack would probably be a better word for them since, you know, werewolves. Talia Hale was awesome. She made the best cookies and was super nice to Stiles every time she came to visit. She and Stiles’s mom were friends.

But then someone set their castle on fire. They had mountain ash-ed a circle around the castle and lit the thing on fire. Everyone died except Derek. The story was he had been camping with some friends that night. Right place, right time; that sort of thing.

Now Derek’s in charge, and he doesn’t stay at the castle. Stiles doesn’t blame him in the slightest. He can’t go into the conservatory anymore without having a panic attack, so Stiles _gets it_. What Stiles doesn’t get is the fact that Derek roams his land with only a handful of people by his side. Every night, they’re in a different place. He has to go back to the castle, now rebuilt, sometimes to still rule and whatnot, but for the most part, he’s in the wind.  

The voices float through as mumbles from the other side. Stiles curses under his breath and tries to shimmy closer until his ear is actually on the door when all voices from in the room stop. Stiles holds his breath and stays as still as he possibly can, which on a good day is about as still as a hummingbird.

Stiles hits his face when the door falls out from in front of him. When he looks up, he is greeted by the angriest eyebrows he’s ever seen, a beautiful strawberry blond, and a disappointed father. His disappointed father. Ah, man.

“I was, uh, checking to see if you guys needed anything?” Stiles winces at the uncertainty in his voice. The three are standing around his dad’s desk, and what looks like a map takes up most of the space.

“By listening in at the door? _Stiles_.” Stiles cringes at his dad’s equal parts ‘you’re an idiot’ and ‘why are you my son’ voice. If he was anyone else’s dad, Stiles would be impressed that anyone could achieve that, but as it were, he’s the recipient, so it’s just painful.

“I’ll just, er, leave you guys to it then,” Stiles says while scrambling off the floor. He wonders if he could scrape his pride off the floor, too. Stiles can’t help but sneak a look at the map on the desk. There are big red X’s marked in a line along the edge of the map, but Stiles can’t really see which land the map is for.

“No, wait.” John scrubs a hand over his face. “You should probably know what’s going on, too.” Stiles raises an eyebrow at that but hurries to close the door and take a seat next to his father. “King Hale, this is my son Stiles. Stiles, this is king Hale and his advisor Lydia.”

Stiles knows this of course but holds out a hand all polite like, trying to act like the prince he is. Any niceties that would have poured from his mouth die in his throat at the glare coming from Mr. Broody. Lydia glances down at her nails like he is beneath her in every way. Stiles slides his outstretched hand back to scratch the back of his neck.

“Back to business, your highness,” Lydia says primly, sitting up ramrod straight. John nods.

“I understand the position you are in, and I can see how it looks, but I’m telling you: I have no idea what’s going on. And I’m sure King Hale can verify that.” John taps his fingers over his heart.

“I’m sorry, newbie to the meeting: what’s going on?” A barely audible growl from across the table gets Stiles’ attention. King Hale is glaring at him. Stiles fights the urge to cringe back from the intensity and meets his gaze. Probably not smart because, you know, alpha werewolf and all, but Stiles’ isn’t one to back down. Or one to take the smartest path, but whatever.

“Livestock and farms that help feed our kingdom have been under attack recently,” Lydia explains with a sigh. “It’s starting to impact the people more than we’d like.”

“‘Under attack’? What does that even mean?”

“It means,” King Hale growls, “That someone has been going through and opening our cattle, throat to groin and salting our soil. It means that people are starting to go hungry.” This time Stiles does flinch from the anger in the king’s voice.

“And you think our kingdom has something to do with it?” King Hale just stares at Stiles. The anger is undeniable in his eyes.

“Well, all of the farms being targeted are on the Hale-Stilinski border.” Lydia’s voice cuts through the tension easily. Stiles looks towards his dad. He’s learned to read John even through his kingly-neutral mask. From the slight crease between his eyebrows to the slight downturned right corner of his mouth, Stiles can tell that John has no idea what’s going on, and he’s definitely not happy about the situation.

“As I was explaining before you came in, Stiles, I have no idea what’s going on. How would this even benefit us? We trade with your land. Our families were friends before… Before.” John’s voice gives a little on the last sentence, but his face remains stoic.

It doesn’t make much sense to Stiles either. Not to be biased, but John is the most honest men Stiles knows. That means that John surpasses all of the other kings in the surrounding areas.

Up north, there’s Deucalion who rules with a cruel, iron fist that immediately strikes down anyone that opposes him in any way. King Deucalion once had a member of his advising team strung up in the courtyard outside of his castle for asking if the king was sure it was a good idea to go for a ride in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. The king’s a little nuts and a lot of bit bloodthirsty.

Deaton rules to the east of the Stilinski’s. The best way Stiles could describe that land is organized chaos. King Deaton doesn’t really help his people so much as sits around and plays mysterious philosophy. He’s adamant that everyone finds their own path in their life.

Argents rule south of them. From the outside, everything is alright with the Argents. Their people are fed, have jobs, and places to live. But there is something about them that Stiles can’t shake, and his mom always said to trust his instincts and he would never be led astray.

The Hales are in the west, and this is the most contact Stiles has had with the king since he’s taken over. The jury’s still out on him.

In other words, Stiles’ dad is the best. He would never do something like this in a million years. If John has a problem with a neighboring kingdom that impacts his kingdom, John is direct. He’s efficient and lenient with negotiations without being a doormat. Stiles can only hope that he will be half the king his dad is when it’s Stiles’ time to take over.

Something else that doesn’t make sense is the reason that king Hale is here accusing his dad to begin with. Yes, the evidence is there that the Stilinski’s could be doing this. The incidents are happening on their shared border, and currently the Stilinski’s are in good standings with the other territories, so it doesn’t make sense for others to try to frame them, but the possibility is there. Not only that, but this isn’t a ‘hey, what’s up with this?’ sort of meeting. This is a serious faced, threats are probably on the table, sort of deal.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Stiles’ mouth blurts out faster than his brain can stop it. He sees his dad flinch at the accusation but otherwise stays stone-faced. So it looks like he’s had the same assumptions. King Hale breathes out his nose heavily. Lydia raises an eyebrow at the king, then nods like she received an answer to a question that wasn’t asked.

“There’s absolutely no scent trail of any kind on anything that has been killed or wrecked.” Lydia looks like she’s bored, but there’s an underlying tension  in her shoulders. John frowns.

“I thought that was impossible.”

“It is unless—”

“—Magic,” Derek cuts in abruptly. His eyes glare daggers into Stiles. Heat crawls up Stiles’ neck and onto his cheeks.

“Excuse me, King Hale. It sounded like you were accusing my son, _Prince_ Adrastos Stilinski, of everything.” His dad’s voice bites with the iciness in it. Stiles winces at the tone and the fact that his real name got brought into the conversation.

“Of course he wasn’t.” Lydia shoots King Hale a glare. “All King Hale was stating is that it’s an odd coincidence that our lands are being attacked with a magical influence and your son is gifted in that area.”

“I wouldn’t say gifted…” Stiles trails off, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly when everyone turns to glare at him. “How are you sure that it’s magic? Another reason that there might not be a scent trail is because everything happened of natural causes. While I do admit that it would be one hell of a coincidence, it’s not entirely impossible.”

King Hale scoffs while reaching to the floor.

“Does this look like natural causes to you?” He tosses the object onto the table. Stiles immediately rears back and tries not to gag.

On the table lays the head of what was probably once one of Derek’s cattle. While there are flies and obvious signs of decomposition, the cut at the neck is straight and clean. Across the unseeing eyes are red X’s. John grimaces at the head.

“No, I would think not.”

\--

“He just threw it on the table?”

“Dropped it like a hot potato,” Stiles confirms. Scott leans back from the table with his eyebrows raised.

“Even as a king, I couldn’t imagine doing that to another king.” Stiles shakes his head in agreement before turning his attention back to the shelf of books in front of him. The library is grand and filled with books, but the shelving system doesn’t exist. It’s sort of a crapshoot when it comes to finding things.

“To be fair, though, you have pantsed and pranked and hit a prince.” Maybe it’s on a different set of shelves? Stiles turns to Scott just in time to see his tan face turn bright red.

“That’s different, and you know it.” It is. Scott might not be any sort of royal, but he grew up in the castle with Stiles since Scott’s mom is the royal physician. She was the one to help deliver Stiles and take care of anyone who got sick. She was the one to help Stiles’ mother in the end. Nevertheless, Stiles and Scott were best friends before either of them really understood the phrase ‘crown prince’. Now, though, Scott still sticks by Stiles’ side, just as Stiles’ manservant instead of playmate. Scott stands up. “Anyway, I’ve got to get back to the kitchen. Everything has been so hectic since the Hales arrived; it’s been all hands on deck recently.”

“You? Helping in the kitchen? We don’t want to poison them even if they’re accusing us of sabotage! If anything that’ll make us look more guilty.” Scott shoves Stiles’ face while chuckling.

“If there’s nothing else, m’lord,” he says whilst  bowing mockingly. Stiles does a stereotypical royal-wave, cup the hand and roll at the wrist. It’s their little inside joke, a jest at how stupid all this posturing actually is. As Scott leaves, Stiles turns back to the shelves.

“All right. It’s show-time,” Stiles says to himself while rubbing his hands together.

Calling upon his magic is like seeing an old friend or sinking into a warm, relaxing bath on a cold day. It wraps around him, ruffles his hair a bit, and flutters the pages of one of the open books left on the table before settling on him like a second skin.

He knows the book he’s looking for. Kind of. it’s one of his books from the early days of his learning; one of the books he had to read before his mom would teach him how to actually use his magic. He put it on the shelf after she died because it hurt too much to see her small, tidy scrawl scribbled in the margins. Hell, for a while, it sucked doing magic once she was gone. It just reminded him of days spent with her. It reminded him of the end of her.

Shaking his head of those thoughts, Stiles spreads his hands and lets his magic wander like tendrils from his fingertips. He focuses on what he could remember of the book. He tries to remember the cover and the feel of it in his hands.

“Go forth and find it,” Stiles whispers. There’s probably an actual spell that corresponds to what Stiles wants to do, but his magic always responded more to him talking to it and believing in it. His mother always told him that he was as stubborn as a mule, so it’s no wonder that his magic responded in kind.

Stiles feels his magic spreading out and searching each shelf. It’s almost like he’s feeling each individual book with his very own fingers until he gets to the right one. It just clicks. Stiles pulls. He opens his eyes, not entirely sure when he closed them, and watches the book drift closer to him. He snags it out of the air and immediately opens the book, trying to find the chapter regarding energies.

“I can honestly say, didn’t see that coming.” Stiles drops the book in surprise and whips around to see the source of the voice.

“King Hale! I didn’t see you there! My apologies.” Stiles tries to pick the book up with his magic inconspicuously, but judging by the way King Hale’s eyes track the book, Stiles didn’t succeed.

“Obviously,” King Hale says dryly. “I didn’t realize how much magic you were capable of.” Stiles internally winces.

“I…” He’s not supposed to talk about it. He’s not going to talk about it. Nope, play the dumb, spastic child. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can only do small tricks like sparks,” Stiles wiggles his fingers and a shower of blue and gold sparks fall from them, “and tinctures. You have and warts or boils you need help with? Maybe down there?” Stiles whispers the last part and points towards King Hale’s lower half. Dear gods, Stiles has a death wish. He’s forgetting all etiquette rules. Oh, no. He’s sure that if he had a mirror, his face would be a lot paler than normal. King Hale quirks an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

“Prince Adrastos. It’s very hard to lie to a werewolf. People’s hearts skip a beat when they lie, and right now, yours is hammering faster  than a rabbit’s.”

“Stiles. Call me Stiles. Or Prince Stiles. Whatever. Just not that, never that.” Stiles is babbling. He’s babbling, and he knows it; he just can’t stop. “Because your advisor. Lydia. She said earlier that I was ‘gifted’ with magic. Sounds to me like you already knew how capable I am. Sir.” Shit, shit, shit. Abandon ship.

“Educated guess. Our mothers were friends after all, Prince… Stiles. What’s a Stiles?” King Hale looks genuinely confused at that.

“I am. Now, if there’s nothing else, King Hale, I’ll be going.” Stiles does an awkward half bow, still trying to conceal the book, and turns to go.

“What book is that?” Stiles freezes. He looks up to the sky and asks his mother for forgiveness. He says a silent prayer while he’s at it. “It must be important, otherwise you wouldn’t have used magic to find it, and you wouldn’t be trying, and failing, to hide it from me now,” King Hale presses when Stiles remains silent for too long.

Stiles weighs his options. He could run. He knows the castle better than King Hale, and with a little magic, he wouldn’t be able to find Stiles. The downside, though, is Stiles would probably look a lot more suspicious that he does right now, and King Hale would just bring it up in front of his father in their meeting tomorrow. He could tell Derek what he’s planning to do, but then he would be breaking the promise he made to his mother about his magic. More than he already has, that is. On the other hand, depending on what Stiles finds out, King Hale might be able to help figure out who’s behind this stuff. Plus it would save Stiles from having to figure out a way to explain what he found out to the group in tomorrow’s meeting. And it would probably save him from his father’s wrath of doing magic while there are unknowns in the castle. Stiles cringes a bit. That ship’s already sailed.

Goddamnit. It’s the best option, but Stiles still doesn’t like it.

“This book has information about energies,” Stiles starts hesitantly. King Hale stalks over to the table and takes a seat. He pointedly looks at the chair in front of him. Stiles rolls his eyes but drops into the chair obligingly.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Stiles opens the book to the right chapter.

“So, werewolves, right?” King Hale raises both of his eyebrows at Stiles. “Shut up, I have a point.” Kind Hale’s eyebrows look as if they’re about to become one with his hairline. Shit, etiquette again. “Uh, apologies, your highness. Forgive me for my abruptness and lack of manners and whatnot.”

“Just get on with it, Stiles.” Stiles winces.

“Right. So, werewolves. How do they see the world? You said so in the meeting. Or Lydia did. Whatever. Smell! That’s the important bit. You or Lydia said that there was absolutely no scent trail, and one of you postulated that that was magical in nature. And, you know, it probably is.” Stiles takes a deep breath and leafs through the chapter a bit to find the chunk of text he’s looking for to try and help explain.

“What does any of that have to do with this book?” King Hale leans back in his chair with his arms crossed. The formal attire creaks in protest against the stretch, and the wolf pelt that King Hale wears around his shoulders slides down onto the back of the chair. It looks sad and lifeless. “Stiles!”

“Wha—Right, sorry. Well, if smells is to werewolves, what it to magic users?” King Hale rolls his eyes.

“Energies?”

“Ding, ding, ding! Gold star for the king! Hey, that rhymed. Anyway! Energy is in everything. Literally everything. That’s the reason why some magic users are better with some materials as opposed to others. Their energies jive together better. Also, whenever someone does magic on an object or person, the person’s energy incorporates itself into the energy of the object or person being magicked. The reason for the book,” Stiles taps his fingers up and down the cover until King Hale glares at him, “is so I can read how to separate the natural energy flowing through this from the energy of the magic user.” With that, Stiles pulls the ear from the dead cow King Hale threw onto the table earlier.

“Is that…?” King Hale trails off, nose wrinkling. Stiles makes a face, too.

“Yeah. I couldn’t get Scott, my manservant, to cut it off for me, so I had to do it myself. Never again,” Stiles mutters as a shiver runs through his body.

“And you’re just gonna… Read its energy?” King Hale looks skeptical but doesn’t make a move to stop Stiles.

“That’s the plan, if you stop interrupting me so I could read this first.” Stiles is probably going to be executed one day. Soon, if he keeps going the way he is right now. Or, at least be grounded by his dad until Stiles takes over the land. King Hale raises his hands in a faux surrender.

Stiles skims the chapter to find the area about the structure of energies. According to the book, energies operate more like blankets than anything. The different strands are woven together to make up the object or person’s aura, or energy signature.

In the margin, neat scrawl states, “Just like in blankets, snip a thread and it can be unwoven. Make sure to fix once done or combustion can occur.”

Stiles smiles sadly at the helpful tip before turning back to the ear. Just as he’s about to dive into working on it, he remembers King Hale sitting there.

“Uh, I don’t know how comfortable you are with magic, but I know you don’t really trust me either? I guess what I’m saying is that you’ve already seen me do some magic, so if you want, you can stay and watch.” King Hale doesn’t move an inch. He stares at Stiles. “Okay, then. I’ll just take that as an invitation to start.”

Stiles’ magic kicks up around him again. It caresses the table, blows Stiles’ cloak from his shoulder, and brushes over King Hale’s form in an assessing way before allowing Stiles to guide it towards the ear.

As soon as Stiles’ magic comes into contact with the ear, Stiles knows something is wrong. Stiles furrows his brows in concentration as he continues to look. Eventually, he throws the ear down, sits back, and just stares at it.

“Well?” King Hale says into the silence.

“There… There’s nothing there. At all. Absolutely no energy to speak of.” Stiles is too confused to lie. Plus lying would only make him look more guilty anyway.

“You told me not even twenty minutes ago that that’s impossible.” King Hale glares at him now. His hands are spread on the table in front of him, and he leans into Stiles’ space. “You’re lying to me.”

“You told me not even twenty minutes ago that that’s impossible,” Stiles snaps back, not backing down from King Hale’s intense gaze.

“But you also have _magic_ ,” he spits the word like it’s an insult. King Hale grabs his wolf pelt from where it fell and whips it around his shoulders as he storms out of the library without a second look back to Stiles.

“Yeah. Magic,” Stiles repeats absentmindedly as he stares down at the ear. He has some research to do.

\--

“Have you been here all night?” The gruff voice startles Stiles out of the zone he worked himself into with the books. As he blinks, Stiles realizes that there are crusty bits stuck around his eyes and that his eyes are very dry. Stiles blinks harder trying to rewet them. When he looks up, Stiles sees Derek standing at the door with Lydia one step behind him.  

“What time is it?” Stiles croaks. In the center of the table is a pitcher of water with a glass and an empty plate with a few bread crusts on it. Stiles almost forgoes the cup to drink straight from the pitcher but manages to restrain himself. Stiles remembers Scott coming in once or twice, trying to get him to go to bed before giving up to sleep himself. Scott also came in this morning, and left some food and water, Stiles guesses. Scott knows how Stiles can get when he gets the urge to figure something out.

“A little after 2. Your father wondered where you were during the meeting.” King Hale walks further into the room and frowns at Stiles. Lydia follows King Hale, but her eyes wander around the library. It is a fairly impressive place. It’s probably Stiles’ favorite place in the castle other than his room.

“Well, that explains why I feel like I’m dying. Stiles rubs his eye with a fist. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“Is that any way to speak to a king?” Lydia’s tone is pleasant in a way that the movement of a snake is until it strikes.

“Is that any way to speak to a crown prince?” Back to this shtick. Great. Stiles stifles a yawn with his left hand while trying to sort the books and his notes with his other. “Besides, cut me a break lady. I’m doing this to try to help you guys.” Ungrateful assholes think they can barge in and lecture him while he’s doing them a favor? Dicks.

“Which is why we’re here. I told Lydia about what happened yesterday—” At that, Stiles’ eyes widen.

“You didn’t tell me dad, did you?” Stiles interrupts King Hale. Lydia shoots him a look, but it also looks like she’s trying to conceal a smirk. King Hale rolls his eyes.

“No. I didn’t. As I was saying,” he glares at Stiles pointedly, “I told Lydia about yesterday, and she told me that she’s encountered this sort of thing before.” Stiles sits up straight.

“You have?” On one hand, Stiles is pissed that he stayed up all night with nothing to show for it when there was someone in the castle who could give him the information he was looking for. On the other hand, any information is good.

Lydia nods and takes the seat that King Hale pulls out for her. Stiles feels his eyebrows raise at that but doesn’t say anything as King Hale takes the seat beside her, which happens to also be next to Stiles.

“I didn’t live far from the Hale castle before it burned.” Her voice has a no-nonsense lilt to it. It’s dispassionate in a way that isn’t cold. Maybe calculating is a better word for it. “I was studying to be a mathematician.” Nailed it. “The Hales had an even better library than yours. On the day of the fire, I was on my way to the castle. When I got there…” The first sign of genuine emotion flashes through Lydia’s mask. She looks terribly sad. “Everything was gone. It was all just rubble.” There’s a creaking noise. Stiles breaks his gaze from Lydia to see King Hale’s hand clenched on the edge of the table. His face doesn’t look different than normal, but his eyes are tinged red and his knuckles are white. The table strains in his grip. Without thinking, Stiles puts his hand on top of King Hale’s. His skin is supernaturally warm and surprisingly smooth.

“And then what?” Stiles urges lightly. Lydia takes a deep breath.

“I thought I could hear someone trapped. I tried. I tried to dig to find them, but I couldn’t. I stood there, a stone in each hand, and I noticed that something wasn’t right. They felt cold, inactive. Dead in a way that I didn’t think possible.” Stiles frowns.

“Why didn’t you think to look at the energy of the things sabotaged then? Or just, in any capacity, you know?”

“Lydia’s magic is… different than most people’s,” King Hale rumbles. Oh, no. Stiles is still holding his hand. He slowly lets go as if King Hale wouldn’t notice if he moved slow enough.

“And no one ever figured out what happened?” King Hale shakes his head. He looks as if he is somewhere else, miles away from here.

“It was the same thing: no scent trail at all, but everyone just chalked it up to the fire.” Stiles sucks on his front teeth before pushing back from the table. His magic starts putting books back on the shelves before he really notices. He shrugs it off. It’s not like King Hale hasn’t seen it before, and he’s likely already told Lydia about what Stiles can do.

“Well, I need a nap before dinner. Lydia, King Hale.” As Stiles walks back to his room, his mind speeds at a million miles per hour. Two instances is only a coincidence, but it’s probably something to look into still. His mother was interested in the investigation into the fire when it happened. She gathered all of the copies of the notes and speculation and conspiracy theories she could. When he was younger, Stiles liked to believe that they were playing detective like the people from the books. Now… Now, Stiles has a bad feeling. On the bright side, maybe his dad kept all of his mother’s old notes, and he’d be able to look at them.

When he gets back to his room, he calls for Scott to get him up an hour before dinner so he’ll have a chance to get cleaned up. Then, Stiles face plants onto his bed and becomes dead to the world for the next couple of hours.

\--

At dinner, Stiles feels a pair of eyes burning into his shoulder while he tries to explain to his dad where he had been.

“I just didn’t feel well, you know?” The lie sits acrid in the back of his throat. His dad frowns at him a bit.

“You don’t look too good. Did you sleep at all last night?” Stiles makes a so-so motion.

“Just couldn’t sleep. I think that’s probably why I didn’t feel well because I took a nap before dinner and now I feel fine.” At least that wasn’t really a lie. “Also, thanks for telling me I look like crap.” He sticks his tongue out at his dad. He rolls his eyes in playful annoyance.

“If you say so, kid.” is all the king says before turning back to his plate. It’s piled high with carrots and green beans with a modest chicken breast because Stiles is in cahoots with the head chef. Finstock gets his expensive mulled cider which makes him louder than usual and hopefully John’s pulse goes down a bit. Melissa warned John the last time he went to see her that if he doesn’t get it in check, his heart might give out, and Stiles doesn’t know if he’ll be able to come back from that.

After dinner, Stiles starts towards his father’s office. His dad normally hangs out in there working on things for the kingdom until late in the night. And people wonder where Stiles gets his tenacity from (and his inability to let things go). A strong hand on his shoulder pulls him into an alcove that’s mostly hidden by a tapestry. His magic bolsters up and stings the hand. He hears a sharp gasp, which gives Stiles enough time to whirl around and create a small orb of light in the palm of his hand. It floats up and hangs over Stiles’ head. In front of him is Lydia. She’s shaking out her right hand and glaring at him.

“Well, Ms. Lydia, are you trying to get the whole kingdom talking?” Her glare intensifies for a moment, but she takes a deep breath and lets her face fall back into its neutral mask.

“That’s not why I’m here. And for the record, you’re not my type. At all.” She eyes him critically for a minute. Stiles shrugs. Fair enough.

“Then why are you here?”

“You seem to be very in control of your magic,” Lydia starts. Stiles shrugs again.

“Kind of. It’s more like it’s its own thing, if that makes sense? Like it’s a part of me, but it also does stuff by itself, but I can also guide it to do things for me? I’m not explaining this properly…” Stiles tries to think of the best way to describe it while Lydia stares at him. She has a very judgmental stare.

“Okay, say you have a dog. You got him as a puppy when you were a child, and you two grew up together. Now he’s a big dog. Like a huge dog. He loves you, so without you telling him, he’ll protect you, try to provide for you, maybe try to groom you. That type of thing. But, you also have specific phrases or ways to get him to do things like sit, stay, speak, protect, fetch, etc. Man, I always wanted a dog.” Lydia continues to stare.

“So, the answer is yes, kind of. Now the question is why?” Stiles folds his arms and tries to look as intense as Lydia. He should probably work on his intimidation factor more. Maybe he should get some tattoos. No, his dad would kill him. And needles; yikes. Become more ripped like King Hale? Stiles resolves to do pushups when he gets to his room tonight.

“I want to.” Lydia sighs like it’s taking a lot out of her to say this. “I want to get better at my magic.” She says it quietly like she’s ashamed. Stiles drops his arms to his sides and sighs as well. Goddamn. Now he can’t be a dick without being a giant dick.

“You’ve never got training?” Lydia shakes her head.

“There’s no one like you—us in the Hale kingdom. For some reason magic users don’t like to settle in our land, and after I became King Hale’s advisor, I couldn’t exactly go about advertising that I needed someone to teach me magic. It would just be asking for trouble.” Stiles nods understandingly. He had really lucked out that his mom could teach him as much as she did. Magic doesn’t exactly run in families, but it didn’t _not_ run in families either. There was a higher chance for a magic user if there was a magic user already in the family, but it didn’t normally appear mother/son like it did for him and his mom.

Plus, having an untrained magic user of any kind was dangerous. They wouldn’t know how to protect themselves, so it was as easy to kidnap an untrained magic user as it was an average person. That means people who saw magic as a bad thing and wanted to destroy it or magic users who wanted to steal power have an easier time poaching untrained users. Add that situation to the fact that the untrained magic user is a royal advisor, and well, it just adds up to a really bad time. Stiles can empathize.

“How about once things settle down a bit? Like after the saboteur is caught. I can come to you or you to me, and we can just say that it’s kingdom relationships shit.” Lydia smiles. It’s not the sharp smile he’s seen before. It’s small and soft.

“I’ll hold you to that.” With a flip of her hair and a flap of the tapestry, Lydia’s gone.

The walk to his dad’s office does Stiles some good. Honestly, he’s surprised that King Hale let Lydia ask him for help. Well, at least Stiles assumed that King Hale let her. She seemed confident that they’d be allowed to meet up. Anyway, Stiles is surprised because he was still under the impression that King Hale didn’t trust him. At all.

Surprise aside, Stiles is going to have to think of a way to spin this to his dad eventually. He really wasn’t supposed to use his magic in front of other people, so telling his dad that not only did he use his magic in front of a potentially hostile, visiting king and his advisor but also he agreed to give said advisor lessons in magic will be a barrel full of fun.

When Stiles finally gets to the office, he can see the glow of candles from under the door. He tries to psych himself up for the conversation he’s about to have, but his hand still shakes as he reaches out to knock.

“Come in.” His dad sounds exhausted already. He peeks his head in and sees his dad with an ink pen in one hand and a small glass of whiskey in the other. Stiles winces. It must have been a very long day for the king.

“Hey, dad. You got a minute?” John smiles and sets down his pen.

“Hey, kiddo. Of course. I’m surprised you didn’t go straight to bed after dinner.” He leans back in his chair a bit and sets his whiskey down as Stiles takes a seat in front of him.

“You know me, always burning the midnight oil. Speaking of which, did you keep mom’s old stuff? Like her notes on the Hale fire and stuff?” Better to do this quickly. Immediately, John’s eyes mist over in nostalgia and sadness. He smiles a small, sad smile.

“I didn’t have the heart to throw any of it away. Why?”

“I just have a gut feeling that somehow these two things are connected, you know? I just wanted to take a closer look at some things.” John tilts his head back and forth like he’s considering it before he nods.

“I don’t see the harm. I’ll have someone bring it up to your room tomorrow morning.”

“Actually, could you send it to the library? I’ll make sure no one gets into it; I just need space to spread everything out. Like connect the dots, right?” John smiles sadly at him again before picking up the whiskey, downing the rest of it, and pouring himself another two fingers worth. Stiles sighs. He knows this is important, but he feels bad for making his dad hurt.

His parents were so in love. The story of how they met used to be Stiles’ favorite bedtime story when he was younger. His dad had a rebellious phase like most teenagers, except instead of sneaking out at night to go get drunk in a field (which is something Stiles has never done before, no siree, never ever), his father would sneak out in the morning to go and talk to the townspeople. His rationale was how was he supposed to rule the people without knowing the people?

He first met Claudia at one of the biweekly bazaars where she sold lotions and tinctures. According to his dad, it was love at first sight. According to his mom, she thought he was strange and awkward but undeniably cute. He came back to the bazaar every time until she agreed to hear him out. She didn’t realize that he was the prince until they were “going steady” or whatever they called it. His parents were furious that he wanted to marry a commoner when it came time for him to ask for her hand, but he spun it as a PR thing. The next king is so for the people that he’s willing to marry someone from the kingdom or something like that. Ultimately, his parents conceded and he got to marry the woman he loved.

Every time they finished telling the story, they would just stare at each other like there was nothing else in the world until Stiles slammed around demanding his goodnight kisses.

“Try not to work too hard,” Stiles says softly as he ducks out. When he looks back, John is staring into the glass like it holds the answers to the world.

\--

“What the actual fuck?” Stiles mutters to himself as he steps into the library. Stiles remembers his mother having a box of notes, two maximum, but he’s greeted by five innocuous looking boxes. This is going to take forever. But this is important. If it is the same person as that one all of those years ago, they might have something else, bigger and more violent planned. There could be lives at stake.

“Might as well get started.” He digs into the first box.

\--

“What happened here?” For the second time in as many days, a gruff voice startles Stiles out of his zone.

“Good morning, King Hale.” Stiles does have manners. Suck it!

“Good _afternoon_ , Stiles.” Damnit. Stiles sets the paper that he was looking at down to face King Hale. He’s not wearing his formal gear; he’s down to a black tunic and a pair of tight trousers. King Hale stares at Stiles like he’s lost his mind. Stiles is starting to become numb to this look. Is it possible to become immune to people? Stiles thinks he’s building up an immunity to King Hale.

Stiles flaps his hand at King Hale and turns back to his stacks of paper. He’s got different sections for the different aspects of the case. There’s an area for the eyewitness accounts and one for the investigators’ notes. Those break down into different sections as well. Conspiracy theories fall under eyewitness accounts while pieces of physical evidence (of which there are few,  but they’re important nonetheless) goes to the investigative side.

“What are you doing?” King Hale is closer to the table now. His face pales.

“Lydia said that she felt the zero energy thing with the fire, too, right? Well, my mom kept tabs on the investigation.” Stiles motions to the covered table. “There’s a chance that I can figure out who was behind the fire by looking through all of this stuff. I mean, the chance is slight, but I’m a pretty smart guy, if I do say so myself, and with a little touch of magic, who knows?” Stiles shrugs. King Hale, still pale, stares at him intensely. Stiles swears that the only thing King Hale can do is sass and stare. Stiles straightens a stack of papers to avoid King Hale’s eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” King Hale’s question catches him off guard.

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you doing this? I came into your territory, accused you and your father of trying to sabotage mine. You should love seeing us suffer after proving your innocence! Why are you doing this?” King Hale yells now. On the surface, he looks angry, but underneath, he looks confused and scared. Stiles leans back in his chair with one arm hooked on the back.

“I would be lying if I said I was doing this one hundred percent out of the goodness of my heart,” Stiles starts. He scratches the side of his head and tries to think of a good way to word his motivations. Everything about King Hale clenches.

“To start off, our moms were friends back in the day. Obviously my mom took the fire hard, and trying to solve this feels like connecting with her.

“Second, you’re not a bad king. You’re not batshit crazy or crazily apathetic like the kings of surrounding lands, and having a strong ally against those buffoons is not only wanted, it’s necessary.

“Lastly… I guess I am kind of doing this out of the goodness of my heart. I don’t want people to die if I can prevent it.” Stiles quiets for a moment to let that answer settle in. “Is that a good enough answer for you, King Hale?”

“Derek.”

“What?” Stiles almost falls backwards out his chair but manages to flail back upright.

“My name’s Derek. It’s only fair that you can use my first name since I’ve been using your nickname. In private only, obviously.” King Hale’s—Derek’s mouth quirks on one side into a smirk.

“Obviously,” Stiles echoes absentmindedly.

Derek pulls out the chair on the other side of the table and takes a seat.

“What have you got so far?”

“You don’t have to put yourself through this, man. While a lot of this is probably garbage, it doesn’t always mean it’s easy to hear or brush off.” Stiles tries to hide the drawing done by a newsprint artist. Stiles seriously doubts that anyone in the family came wandering out of the castle still half on fire.

“I want to help in any way that I can,” Derek replies firmly. He grabs a stack of papers from the open box on the table and stares at Stiles expectantly. He sighs before launching into an explanation of what’s what.

\--

“I was angry at my mom,” Derek says out of the blue. It’s been a few hours since Derek came into the library, and everything has been sorted. They are now going through and reading everything closely, sorting between what seemed reasonable and what was absolute bullshit.

“I was so mad, so I snuck out to go, I don’t know, camping for a night? Just something to get out of the castle.” Stiles sets down the paper he had been looking at but doesn’t say anything. Derek stares into middle distance, fist clenching, causing the paper in it to crumble.

“I am—was—the middle child. Laura was going to be queen one day, so I didn’t understand why I couldn’t live outside the castle, be friends with who I wanted to be friends with, why I couldn’t just be normal. I wasn’t the important one in the grand scheme of things, and I wanted to study art from one of the masters in a far off land. That’s what we fought about.

“I thought I was so clever,” Derek chuckles wetly. “I thought I could prove that they wouldn’t even notice I was gone. But then the fire happened.” Derek balls up the paper in his hand and throws it across the room. He stares at the space where it had flown. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t left that day.”

 

Stiles swallows hard. He barely knows Derek, he only started calling him by his first name, but he feels like he understands the man.

“When my mom,” Stiles swallows again. He starts over. “Everyone knew about my mom’s magical abilities. One day, she got sick. Our doctor didn’t know what was wrong. She just got sicker and sicker. Then I walked in on my mom trying to do a simple levitation.” Stiles raises the papers on the table with his magic. It trembles over his skin, reacting to his emotions, but it holds strong. Stiles sets everything down before continuing. “She couldn’t do it. It was the first spell she ever taught me, and she couldn’t do it. She burst into tears.

“She explained it to me. Afterwards, you know? I crashed into the room and demanded to know what was going on. I barely waited until she dried her tears before crawling onto the bed and demanding she tell me right this instant. I was a very stubborn kid. I know,” Stiles smiles sadly at Derek who looks at him with clouded eyes, “Some things don’t change.

“Her magic was being burned out of her, probably absorbed by the person who set the curse. She obviously didn’t tell little eight-year-old Stiles that specifically, but if there’s one good thing about me, it’s my ability to research.

“She died when the last bit of magic was stolen from her. Before she was gone, she made me promise to not let people know I have magic so the same thing wouldn’t happen to me. It wasn’t really a problem at the time because for a while, I couldn’t even use my magic, no matter how much it physically hurt to not let it out. It just reminded me of my mom too much.” The resulting silence is heavy. Both Stiles and Derek stare at each other with calculating gazes. It’s like they’re trying to see how this newfound knowledge fits in with what they already know.

“So, if you had the choice, who would you have studied under?” And like that, the silence breaks. Derek looks at him for another beat before his mouth quirks into a smirk.

“Well, Leonardo Da Vinci is a genius.”

\--

Derek and Stiles exchange light banter until a meek man with chiseled cheekbones fetches him for dinner.

“Why is everyone from your land unnaturally attractive?” Stiles complains. Seriously, it’s unfair. Derek smirks at him as his eyes dissolve into red and his fangs drop below his bottom lip.

“Maybe because we’re unnatural?” His words are slightly lisped due to the fangs, and that shouldn’t be as adorable as it is. Stiles waves at Derek to get going.

“Yeah, whatever you say, Sourwolf.” Derek rolls his eyes but follows the now amused quiet man out of the library.

It’s an hour or so later that it hits Stiles: he’s magic, damnit, why not use it to help? Gods, he’s so stupid sometimes.

The question is what would be the smartest way to use his magic? There’s no real future telling magic or a ‘figure it out for me’ spell. But maybe his mom was on the right track when she poured over this stuff years ago.

Stiles lets his magic spill over all of the papers left on the table. He looks into the auras coming off of everything. At a glance, Stiles sees the faint energies of the people who originally wrote and collected these, but over everything is his mom’s energy.

It’s difficult to explain energies and auras. Most like to describe them as colors, but Stiles feels the strength of the energy and an impression of… something. His mom’s energy is a strong zap of mint.

Stiles takes the advice form the energy chapter and snips a small cut into the energy blanket and follows the mint. He follows it and sees where it collects like puddles. His hands move to grab those puddles even as he focus on the blanket in front of him. By the time he works his way through the whole thing, Stiles has collected five items. Before pulling away from the energy field, he finds the tear and ties all of the loose strings into a big bow. They glow bright for a minute before dissolving back into the field.

Stiles levitates the remaining papers back into the box and sets four pieces of paper and one bag with an item in it on the table. As he’s about to dive into everything, Scott and the shy cheekbones from before bust into the library. Stiles raises both eyebrows.

“What’s going on?”

“The Argents are here!” Scott wheezes. He’s bent over and gasping for breath. The other dude awkwardly pats Scot on his back. Scott raises a thumbs up from where he’s bent but doesn’t straighten up.

“What do they want?” Stiles frowns. It’s not necessarily uncommon for royal families to go visit neighboring territories… in other parts of the world. No one around these parts really enjoy socializing with people outside of their land.

“They’ve requested a meeting with King Stilinski and asked for King Hale to not be present.” The man scowls while still patting Scott’s back even though Scott isn’t heaving anymore.

“No offense, but who are you?” Stiles thinks he’s Derek’s manservant, but he’s not certain why he’s here. “And why are you here?” Smooth, Stilinski.

“My name is Isaac. I am King Hale’s manservant. Apologies,” Isaac says as he bows. Stiles waves off the apologies. He’s not one to qualm with being treated without manners.

“I am here because King Hale requests a meeting with you. Right now.” Stiles raises an eyebrow.

“He’s met me here many times before. In fact, he was here with me earlier. Why the change?” Isaac looks stricken and suddenly like a lost puppy. Damn, Stiles wants a dog.

“I guess he doesn’t want prying ears or prying eyes? He asked that you meet him at the far side of the stables.” Scott shoots Stiles a suggestive eyebrow wiggles, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“If anything, it sounds like he’s going to murder me. What’s with the Hale posse whisking me away to dark, secluded spots? At least make it less politics stuff and more… other stuff. Ugh.” Isaac smirks and bows out of the room.

“So. You and King Hale?” Scott smiles at him teasingly. Stiles groans and throws a book at him.

“If you would excuse me, Scotty boy, it looks like I have a grumpy king to see.”

Stiles zones out the walk to the stables. Growing up here meant that Stiles knew every inch of every pathway, even the secret ones. He made it his mission to try and find the best ones so his tutors couldn’t find him and drag him back to his lessons.

The Argents coming is definitely odd. The Hale group had only been here a few days before they showed up meaning they had to have left as soon as word spread that the Hales were here, if not earlier. And that doesn’t make sense.

For once, Stiles is thankful for the pomp and circumstance around royalty because that means there needs to be a welcoming meal before a meeting can take place. Dinner already happened, so the meeting will happen midday at the earliest.

Stiles gets to the meeting spot and immediately notes that it’s devoid of Derek.

“Go to a dark meeting spot, they say. You definitely won’t be murdered or kidnapped, they say,” Stiles mumbles to himself as he rubs his arms to try and chase away the chill in the air.

“No promises,” comes from right by his ear. Stiles’ magic roars up and shoves at the person behind him. Stiles turns around and finds Derek frowning as he inspects his arms.

“Dude! So not cool!” Stiles tries to will his heart to calm down.

“What did you do to me?” Derek asks, completely unconcerned that Stiles almost shit his pants.

“I didn’t do anything, unlike some people!” Derek shoots him an unimpressed look. “It was probably my magic.”

“So, you cast something on me? Why’s it all warm and tingly?”

“I explained this to Lydia so you can ask her, but the shot of it is my magic does things without me telling it to sometimes. It zapped Lydia when she kidnapped me.” Derek raises a brow at Stiles. Stiles shrugs. “She needed to talk to me. The woman’s direct; I’ll give her that. Kind of terrifying before you get to know her, though. Even more terrifying afterwards, I’m sure.”

“But it didn’t shock me.” Stiles scratches the side of his head.

“Only thing I can think is that it doesn’t find you a threat?” Derek flashes his eyes red at Stiles, and Stiles rolls his eyes. “And by that, I mean it doesn’t see you as a threat to me. I don’t know, man. I don’t exactly have someone teaching me this stuff. Even my mom didn’t understand my magic that well.” Stiles finds it easier to mention his mom in passing to Derek than anyone else. He tries not to think about it. Stiles flails his arms at Derek.

“Anywho, come here often?” Stiles gives a cheesy smile. Derek rolls his eyes, but his face falls into his serious face, which is just his normal expression but more grumpy. He also looks worried.

“The Argents.”

“They’re here; yeah, I heard. What’s the problem? You gotta give me something here, buddy.”

“They’re never liked… us. People like us.”

“By ‘us’ do you mean werewolves or like magic stuff in general?” Derek shakes his head.

“Werewolves. They have this code in regards to hunting us.” Stiles makes a disgusted noise. “They say it’s to keep people safe from the beasts that can hide amongst humans or some bullshit. For a while, I thought the Argents were behind the fire, but I had no proof and no resources for war.” Stiles leans his back against the stable wall.

“Well, that would have been good information to know when we were digging through those boxes.” Derek shrugs.

“Confirmation bias.” Stiles nods reluctantly.

“So why do you think they’re here?” Even knowing the background, Stiles doesn’t see the play here. Derek looks out into the dark and crosses his arms. Stiles wonders how far he can see, if his vision changes when he shifts. Stiles wants to see the full shift. He’s seen illustrations but never the real thing.

“All I know is it can’t be good. Especially if they’re requesting a meeting without me. Gerard Argent is a conniving bastard and his daughter, Kate, is as vicious as they come.” Stiles knows all of this. He didn’t know about the whole hunter/werewolf-hate thing, but Stiles doesn’t understand the point of this.

“Why are you telling me this?” Derek freezes and stares into the dark a little harder.

“I figure you’re going to sit in on the meeting tomorrow despite anyone asking or telling you not to, so you might as well have the full picture. Also, I just,” Derek trails off. He sighs and looks at the ground. “I just want you to be careful, okay?” Derek looks up at Stiles, earnest and vulnerable. “These are dangerous, dangerous people. They learn from a young age to kill werewolves, and they have all of the resources of being a royal. Add to that the fact that they’re master manipulators.

“Don’t antagonize them. I know how you are, Stiles, just don’t do it. I don’t know why they’re here, but it can’t be good, and it definitely won’t be good if you make yourself a target.” Derek stares at him with an intense look that Stiles doesn’t fully know how to read.

“So, you’re actually a Softy-wolf instead of a Sourwolf,” Stiles mutters to himself. Derek’s stare turns into a glare, so Stiles kicks off the stable’s wall and rests his hand on Derek’s shoulder. Ooh. Very muscley and warm. Nice.

“I promise I will try to be careful.” Derek glances at Stiles’ hand but doesn’t say anything. “Do you want to meet here tomorrow, same time, to discuss what happens at the meeting?” Derek nods.

“You should probably refrain from using magic more than usual, too. Don’t give them any more leverage than they already have.”

“Alright, big guy.” It’s silent for a minute before Derek looks pointedly at the hand that’s still on his shoulder. Stiles winces and retracts.

“I’m taking my hand off.” Stiles says awkwardly. “See you tomorrow, bye!” He all but runs away. He chances a look over his shoulder and sees Derek looking at the ground again, a small smiles on his face, shaking his head.

\--

Breakfast is intense to say the least. The dining hall is done up to the nines with a renewed vigor. As there are two kings visiting, the royal table is slightly more cramped than usual. It turns out that King Argent brought along Kate. In addition, he brought his son and his son’s wife, Chris and Victoria. Chris will be the one to take over when Gerard steps down, so it’s no surprise that he’s here. Stiles doesn’t know why Victoria’s here, though, nor Kate.

Gerard has made himself right at home. He’s practically lounging in his chair like it’s a throne, popping food into his mouth with his fingers. Kate is next to Victoria. They’re conversing with their heads bowed close to each other. Their eyes roam up and down the table, lingering on the Hales a second longer than on anyone else. Chris eats with a ramrod straight back and correct silverware. His eyes are focused on his plate.

On the Stilinski’s other side, the Hale’s court is also sitting straight with downcast eyes, not talking. Lydia’s the exception, of course she is. She has a cold, calculating gaze trained on Kate and Victoria.

 

Stiles waves a butter knife in front of his father’s face.

“What are you doing?” John whispers.

“Trying to cut the tension. I thought this would be enough to slice through it, but it looks like I need to call for a steak knife,” Stiles whispers back. He doesn’t know why they’re whispering; everyone’s caught up in their own things, but Stiles guess that it fits the atmosphere. John covers his smile with a hand and snorts quietly. When his hands drops, the king looks serious once more.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit out of this meeting? I have a feeling this isn’t going to be pleasant.” Stiles just shakes his head, and his dad sighs. “Alright, kid. We’re gonna just head over to my office after breakfast. They said that this meeting was of great importance.” It must be seriously important if it’s happening so quickly.

Stiles nods, and unconsciously, his eyes go for Derek. He’s already looking at Stiles, so he knows that Derek heard that entire conversation. Derek gives a slight nod, and the conversation from last night hits Stiles again.

Last night was very surprising. It was a very odd experience to get the ‘please be safe’ talk from Derek. And his magic! Stiles guesses that it makes sense that his magic trusts Derek. They’ve spent a surprising amount of time together, and they did share some pretty personal secrets with each other. And, yeah, if Stiles is pushed, he would probably say that he trusts Derek. Maybe that’s a two-way street based on Derek’s impromptu meeting yesterday. Oh, who knows? Stiles has more important things to worry about than this.

Derek catches his eye again and raises a brow before raising a hand to tap at his chest, right over his heart. Oh, Stiles’ heart is racing. Shit. Stiles shakes his head slightly and shrugs, hoping that that would convey that he’s okay.

“Come on, kid.” His dad nudges Stiles’ shoulder, breaking him out of his internal freak out and the silent conversation.

If Stiles thought the tension was bad in the dining hall, then he doesn’t know how to describe how it is in his dad’s office. Maybe he’s just projecting the awkwardness. Stiles sits on his father’s right while Gerard and Chris sit across from them at his dad’s desk . Kate and Victoria flank Gerard. King Argent. No, fuck this guy. Gerard.

“What can I do for you?” his dad asks neutrally. Kate puts a hand on her father’s shoulder. Gerard tilts his head and smiles in a way that Stiles thinks is supposed to be pleasant.

“I believe the situation is more of what _we_ can do for _you_.” Stiles raises an eyebrow and looks to his dad. He’s still as neutral as ever. John’s always had a better poker face than Stiles.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Gerard leans forward, and Kate’s hand slips from her father’s shoulder. “There’s been talk that King Hale,” he spits the name, “has come and accused you of sabotaging him. He’s done the same thing to us before.”

As Gerard speaks, Stiles feels the prodding of someone else’s magic. Quickly, Stiles tamps down on his magic’s natural reaction and tries to covertly look around to see who’s doing it. No one seemed particularly focused for no reason, but then again, Gerard is the only one actively talking. Thankfully, the magic doesn’t seem too strong, so Stiles quickly whisks his magic into duping the other magic so it thinks he’s 100% normal.

“—demanding reparations. Damn beast.” Gerard snarls as Stiles tunes back into the conversation. “We didn’t do a damn thing, and he demanded for us to pay him.”

“Why do you think he did this?” King Stilinski’s voice gives nothing away as to what he’s thinking. Gerard scoffs.

“He wanted to marry Kate.” Kate smirks. “I guess she caught his eye during some of our negotiations.” John nods, signaling for Gerard to continue.

“We had to pay. He threatened us with King Deucalion. I guess those kind stick together, and you know how bloodthirsty the Duke is.” John stares at Gerard while the room falls into silence. Stiles fidgets in his seat. This is clearly all bullshit. Derek hasn’t asked for anything except help, and he has mentioned King Deucalion in any regard.

“So, what is it that you propose?”

“The less you know, the better. For obvious reasons.” Gerard bares his teeth in an attempt to smile. “However, all I ask is that you tell King Hale that he’s outstayed his welcome, and we’ll take care of the rest. Us older kings have to sticks together, right? Show the newer ones the old ways and show them how things are supposed to be done.” Chris frowns at his father’s words but quickly looks away.

An assassination. They’re talking about killing Derek. Are they serious?

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” John asks quietly. There’s a hint of an edge in his voice. Gerard raises his hand in faux surrender.

“I’m just offering you a way out. Those reparations he’s asking for aren’t cheap, and while I know your people love you and are taken care of, I also know that your kingdom isn’t a particularly profitable one.” John’s jaw clenches. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll only stay the day. Think the offer over, and let me know before midnight tonight. We’ll leave after breakfast tomorrow.” Gerard stands up, and Chris follows suit. Gerard taps on John’s desk with two knuckles. “Just think about it.” And they leave.

Stiles and his dad sit in silence for two full minutes. John gets up and grabs the decanter of whiskey from the book shelf by the fireplace and takes a huge gulp from it. Stiles wrinkles his nose. It’s only like eleven in the morning. John catches the look on Stiles’ face and raises a brow.

“Cut me some slack, kid. You saw what just happened.” He rubs a hand over his face, and Stiles slumps back into his chair and lets out a hard breath.

“They want to kill Dere—King Hale.” Again. Smooth, Stilinski. His dad shoots him an amused look.

“So he’s Derek now?” His dad asks mockingly. Stiles glares at him.

“You can make fun of me later, because from the sound of it, they’re gonna hit when the Hales leave the castle. And they can’t stay here forever.” Stiles rubs his forehead. His dad takes another swig before putting the decanter down.

“Yeah.” John sits down and sinks back into his chair. “Chris didn’t seem too into the plan.” Stiles nods.

“He’s the one who’s gonna take the crown when Gerard steps down, right? Not Kate?” John gives him a flat look.

“We’re not going to construct a political assassination to avoid another political assassination, Stiles.” Stiles rolls his eyes, but his mind is racing with possibilities. He needs to talk to Derek.

“I know, dad. It was just a question. I gotta go to the library.” He gets up and starts for the door.

“Nothing’s ever ‘just a question’ with you, son. Be careful with the Argents wandering around. And _don’t_ say anything to them, Stiles.” Stiles waves a hand over his shoulder in acknowledgement as he leaves.

When he gets outside, he quickly duck into an alcove. He calls up his magic, reveling in the feeling of letting it free after shoving it down to bare minimum earlier. He brings it close to him and gathers some of his magic into a ball. He whispers into it for Derek to meet him in the library as soon as possible. He then throws the ball and wills it to find Derek and not give the message until Derek’s alone. He’s never tried this before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. Besides, it probably wouldn’t be good for Stiles to be caught by an Argent with Derek near the Hale’s rooms. At least the library is a public room. And Stiles has those papers and stuff to show Derek still.

Stiles wanders over towards the library, unsure if the magic worked or if Derek would be alone to hear the message. He’s about to enter the library when he hears Derek calling his name from down the hall. He is still in his formal wear from breakfast with that damned wolf pelt on his shoulders. And he just can’t help it. Stiles’ feet drag him to Derek, and before he even really recognizes what he’s doing, he’s thrown his arms around Derek’s shoulders.

Stiles didn’t realize the extent of which he cared about Derek until the Argents barged in. He knows Derek loved his family but hates the royalty and politics that came with the family. He knows that Derek wanted to be an artist and can still draw really well (even if he’s only shown off his sketches of rude caricatures of Stiles). He knows that Derek’s sassy and has a biting, smart sense of humor that’s hilarious if you can keep up. But most of all, Stiles knows that he wants to get to know Derek even more. He has a feeling that they could be great together.

 

“Stiles. Stiles! Are you okay? What’s going on?” Stiles feels frantic hands run over his shoulders and back. Okay, yeah. Vague message and hugging like he’ll never see Derek again, probably not the best way to not panic Derek. Stiles pulls out of the hug, and Derek’s eyes are wide and slightly alpha red like he’s trying to search out the danger.

“I’m okay, I’m okay. The meeting just took a turn that I wasn’t expecting. Come one, let’s go into the library. Less prying ears.” Derek shoots him a look before following him into the library. Stiles leads Derek to their normal table that still had all of their things on it. Stiles locks the door behind them so no Argent can wander in without warning. Stiles notices Derek wrinkle his nose.

“What, do I smell bad?” Stiles raises his arm to smell his armpit. Nope, he just bathed this morning.

“No, it’s just.” Derek sniffs a little bit then leans in and smells Stiles’ neck. The feel of Derek’s nose brushing against his neck sends shivers up his spine. Stiles tries to push down the reaction, but judging by Derek’s slight smirk, he didn’t succeed.

“I smell you, but all of the other background scents aren’t there.” Stiles raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t think I understand.” Stiles hops up and sits on the table. Derek crosses his arms with a look on his face like he’s trying to think how to explain it.

“So everyone has a smell that’s specific to them, that they leave when they interact with people or things. The inverse is also true, so people and things also leave their scent on you throughout the day. So, you should smell like breakfast, Scott, your father, the Argents, and whatever you used in your bath this morning, but right now, you only smell like you and me.” A faint red dashes over Derek’s cheeks.

“How did you know I had a bath this morning?” Derek glares.

“Is that really all you got out of that?” Stiles raises his hands.

“I was just curious.” Derek rolls his eyes.

“I could smell you this morning when you walked into the dining hall.” Stiles looks at him with surprise.

“Damn, over breakfast and everyone else in the room? That’s impressive. You can do that with everyone?”

“So what did you do? And why?” Stiles notices the sidestep but doesn’t mention it.

“I didn’t do anything. And for the record, I’m offended that you immediately think that whatever’s going on with this,” Stiles motions to himself, “is my fault.”

“To be fair, I’m sure a lot of weird things that happen around here are your fault.” Derek smirks.

“I resent that.” Stiles sticks his tongue out at Derek and nudges Derek’s thigh with his foot. Derek catches his ankle and lifts, sending Stiles sprawling back on the table. He hears Derek chuckle and when he looks, Stiles sees Derek smiling softly. Stiles resolves that he’s going to try and get Derek to smile more often. It’s like the sun coming out after weeks of rain.

“Rude!” Stiles flails to get upright. “Besides, I’ll have you know that the only magic I’ve done today was contacting you and…” Stiles trails off, remembering the first time he used magic that day. Gods damn.

“Derek, this is important. Can you say whether this is similar to the livestock or even the fire? Can you even tell if lack of smell is similar? That was a dumb question. But I don’t really know how else to ask.” Stiles stares off in the distance trying to think of another way to see if everything’s connected.

“Stiles,” Derek’s up in his space now, standing between his thighs, hand resting on his leg, “what’s going on?” Derek’s eyes are amazing. What color is that even? And, ooh his lips. Those are very nice looking lips. Kissable even.

“Stiles.” He breaks out of his staring and feels his cheeks heat up. Derek’s smirking at him.

“Awkward.” Stiles coughs. “While I was in the meeting, there was magic searching for something. Probably to see if either of us are magic users. Thankfully, I’m the best ever and was able to hide my magic, but I couldn’t tell who was using it. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t Gerard but that’s all I really got.”

“So you think that whoever that was is the person responsible for the fire and what’s going on now?” Stiles shrugs.

“Makes sense to me. You suspected the Argents of the fire, the Argents show up, weird things happens that cause something that showed up in relation to the fire. It’d be one hell of a coincidence, but I suppose that’s possible.” Derek tilts his head back and forth like he’s debating the possibility. He looks down at Stiles with narrowed eyes.

“This doesn’t explain what spooked you so badly that you couldn’t wait until tonight to see me like we had planned.” Stiles’ thighs tighten against Derek’s without meaning to.

“They had a proposal for dad.” Stiles winces at the wording. It sounds so innocent for something that is definitely not.

“A proposal?”

“Yeah. Uh, dad kicks you out of the castle and they ‘take care’ of dad’s problem. Did I mention that they also claimed that you went to them claiming that they were sabotaging you and that you demanded reparations or you’d declare war on them with the Duke as an ally? All because Kate rejected your marriage proposal?” Derek blinks and takes a step back so Stiles’ thighs fall closed.

“And by ‘take care,’ am I to assume…?”

“That they meant murder you? That’s kind of what I figured, hence the freak out and the need to tell you to be extra careful. I doubt they’d pull anything while in the castle, but then again, you could never be too careful.” They fall into silence. Derek’s expression shuts down incrementally in front of Stiles’ eyes. Stiles reaches forward and grabs Derek’s hand.

“Listen, we’ll figure this out, okay? I said I was going to help, and I meant it. I’m going to help, Derek.” Derek pulls his hand away.

“We barely know each other, Stiles. You’re promising a lot and taking risks and _you barely know me_. Why the hell are you doing this? You don’t stand to gain anything from getting involved with me. In any way.” Derek isn’t looking at Stiles. He looks like he’s waiting for Stiles to realize this and say ‘see ya!’ and book it.

“Okay, to the first part, fair. I don’t know you super well, but I know you enough to want to help. To the second part, have you ever thought that I don’t want anything except to be involved with you in whatever way you want to be?” Stiles’ cheeks burn. Well, this just keeps going back to awkward. Stiles wasn’t expecting to talk about feelings and shit today. At least Derek’s looking at him again.

“Now, another reason I wanted to meet you here is because I had some stuff to show you. I did a little,” Stiles wiggles his fingers, and the side of Derek’s mouth quirks, just a little bit, “and these,” he hops off the table and motions to the things left on the table, “are the things that my mom focused on a lot.” Derek walks over and glances at the papers and bag.

“Have you looked at them yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you.” Derek looks at him in surprise. Stiles shrugs. “What? You deserve to see this stuff more than anyone.” Derek grabs one of the papers and sits down while pulling a chair closer and motioning for Stiles to sit down.

“Ah, back to the nonverbal communication. My favorite. Don’t let them say romance is dead,” Stiles grumbles under his breath but drops into the seat nonetheless. Derek glares at him and playfully snaps his fangs at Stiles. Stiles sticks his tongue out at Derek and then turns to read the paper.

The paper is an eyewitness account. It’s not of the night of the fire but from two months prior. According to the report, this was a magic user who is pretty well known for his grip on magic. He was passing through the Hale territory and stopped in a pub. While he was there, a pretty blond woman talked him up, and it came out that they both were magic users. She claimed that she was a newer user and had no formal training. She wanted advice on how to grow her power because she wasn’t all too strong. She was disappointed to find out that it’s impossible to grow one’s innate power and turned to asking if that was why people turned to kidnapping and stealing other magic users power. She seemed horrified. She asked how people could so that to someone, and somehow, the process of how to steal power came out. She asked if people have tried it on other magical beings, and he told her while he hadn’t heard of it, he thought it would be possible through a similar process. In the report, he couldn’t really remember her face other than her being beautiful, blond, and… endowed, but she had a necklace that he found interesting.

“Is that…” Stiles trails off.

“A wolf skewered by an arrow? Yep.” The drawing is a wolf with an arrow through it, which could be an innocuous, cute design if there wasn’t the Argent background attached to it.

“Well, I think I know what this is then.” Stiles pulls out the pouch and dumps the contents onto the table. Sure enough, there’s a slightly charred wolf sitting on the table. It looks like the delicate ends of the arrows broke in the fire.

Stiles had only just picked it up when there’s a pounding on the door like someone is trying to get in. Derek and Stiles look at each other in panic.

“What do we do? It smells like an Argent.” Derek looks around the library, but there’s only one door, and the windows don’t open except for one square panel that would barely fit Derek’s bicep, let alone his head or shoulders. Or butt. Hot damn, that butt. For another time!

“Get to the corner between the bookshelf and the wall. I’ll camouflage you; just don’t move around too much,” Stiles hisses while pushing Derek that way already. The rattling at the door gets louder, and Stiles can feel the stirring of magic about to be used. Derek gives him a look.

“You’re not supposed to use your magic around them. Especially since we just read that they know how to steal power!” Derek’s not fighting against going to the corner, but he’s definitely not helping.

“I’ve got it covered, just go and shut up!” Stiles gives him a push with a bit of magical oompf and turns Derek into shadows before creating a secondary skin that he wills to make himself appear non-magical. He hears Derek inhale sharply.

Stiles unlocks the door and is immediately met by Kate Argent and a bit of magic.

“Hey there! Sorry ‘bout that. The door gets stuck sometimes.” Stiles tries to smile as innocently as possible. She brushes past Stiles without a word and swoops into the main portion of the library. She looks around before turning back to him.

“I heard voices,” she says thoughtfully. She looks around the library again, and Stiles feels her magic extend out too. Thankfully, she really isn’t that strong of a magic user.

“Oh, right. I like to talk to myself when I do things. It helps me think.” Stiles shrugs. Not technically false.

“And what are you working on?” Kate reaches the table and turns the papers to face her so she can read them. Stiles almost hits himself. He swears he can feel Derek glaring, but to be fair, Derek didn’t hide them either. He’s hardly the only one at fault here. Kate tsks softly.

“Looks like the little prince is sticking his nose somewhere he shouldn’t.” Kate turns to face Stiles. She props herself against the table. “And what are you doing that for?”

“Just some of my mother’s old things.” Stiles knows his face is pale. He knows he probably sounds like a lying asshole. But damnit, he’s not going to admit she’s intimidates him. “I was feeling nostalgic.” Kate grabs the wolf and moves it across the table like it’s running.

“Trying to be a superhero for King Hale,” she mocks like he hadn’t even spoken. “Think he’d actually want you if you solved the great Hale fire mystery? He is pretty attractive. For an animal, that is.” Stiles wills his magic to try and keep Derek calm with soft touches. It wouldn’t do any good for him to be found. Or for Derek to murder Kate. “There’s something about sleeping with one of them, knowing that you’ve tamed the beast.” She smiles wickedly, completely unaware of the alpha in the rooms struggling not to kill her. Hell, Stiles would let him if he thought it wouldn’t fuck them in the long run.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stiles says stiffly. Kate chuckles.

“Of course the little prince is a virgin.” Stiles opens his mouth to protest that that wasn’t what he meant and that he could have someone if he wanted to but he’s got more important things to focus on right now, but Kate cuts him off by grabbing the papers and the wolf pendant.

“People always say you’re so much like your father,” she watches the paper as they catch fire in her hands, “but you’re just like your mother. You get in other peoples’ business. If you’re not careful, you might meet the same end as her.” Ice enters Stiles’ veins.

“What?” It slips out without even meaning to. Kate dumps the ashes to the floor and pockets the wolf. She brushes her hands off and pushes off the table. She pats Stiles’ cheek.

“Don’t worry. I think you’ll be smarter than her.” She leaves. Stiles feels numb.

“Stiles?” The voice is hesitant. “Stiles.” It’s closer now. Firm hands grasp Stiles’ shoulders, and he’s pushed into a chair. “Stiles, look at me.” He manages to focus his eyes on the person in front of him. The one with the indescribable eyes.

“Derek.” Stiles swallows hard. “Derek, I think she was the one who killed my mom.” He sounds pathetic. Derek nods slowly. “She can’t. I’m not going to let her. That bitch is going _down_.” Where there was ice is now replaced by fire. He stands, waving off Derek’s hands. He paces.

“Any evidence we might have had is gone now. All we have is knowledge. We have to prove it.” Derek frowns at Stiles and crosses his arms.

“To whom? The whole family is crooked. And like you said, our evidence is gone. The easier, more sure fire way to get this over with it to kill them. All of them.” Stiles stops his pacing to look at Derek while picking at his bottom lip.

 

“I don’t think Chris is a part of this. He seems all right. And while I agree that killing them would be the easier, more satisfying option, that would open up a free-for-all for the open territory which means a lot of bloodshed. When we can prove it, we bring it to my dad. He’ll know what to do.” Derek cocks his head, thinking about it, and then nods.

“That just begs the question of how we’re going to prove it.” And the thing is, Stiles does kind of have a plan. He’s just not one hundred percent sure it’ll work. Or that it’ll be safe. Well, he does kind of know that it _won’t_ be safe which is another reason to not say anything.

“Yeah…” Stiles trails off in a way that he hopes makes Derek think he’s trying to think of a plan. Derek raises an eyebrow at him, but Stiles lets himself slump forward and press his forehead into Derek’s shoulder.

“Would it be too much to ask for a nap? Like the longest nap? Today sucks, and I want it to be over already.” Stiles feels Derek shift under him, and then there’s a hand carding through his hair.

“I second that,” Derek murmurs softly. Stiles raises up slightly to waggle his eyebrows at Derek and feels a flick on the back of his head, which is immediately softened by a gentle caress.

“Separately.” Stiles pouts and replaces his forehead on Derek’s shoulder. “Unfortunately, we’ve got more important things to think about.”

“Fine. Party pooper.” Derek raises Stiles head with a hand on his jaw. He looks searchingly into Stiles eyes for a moment.

“I’ll see you at dinner. Meet me here afterwards?” Stiles straightens up finally, and Derek’s hands fall away. Stiles misses their warmth and soothing touch almost immediately.

“Probably shouldn’t try our luck again tonight. Tomorrow? After breakfast, by the stables?” If things went his way later, they won’t have to worry about meeting tomorrow. Derek nods, his face soft. He leans forward, pauses, then runs the tip of his nose of Stiles’ left cheekbone. Stiles lets out a stuttered breath. Derek looks at him one more time before leaving.

\--

Stiles tells Scott to send a message to Princess Kate to be delivered right before dinner then asks for no one to bother him until dinner. He’s got work to do.

\--

“I’ve got to say, you have caught my attention. Surprises all around.” Kate is lounging on the table in the library when Stiles walks in two hours after dinner like he asked. She’s changed out of the formal garb. Kate now wears black trousers and a billowy green tunic with her hair down. It reminds Stiles of the guys on the front of those romance books that Melissa reads sometimes.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.” Stiles keeps his distance as Kate sits up.

“It depends on the type of attention you demand.” Kate smiles sharply. “What type do you demand, little prince?” Stiles restrains himself from rolling his eyes and grips his mother’s locket that he brought for moral support.

“You did it, didn’t you? You were the one who killed my mom.” Kate does roll her eyes.

“Have you no manners? To come and just ask outright like that? So gauche.” She waltzes up to Stiles and grabs his neck not too loosely. “You think you’re invincible while we’re in the castle, but let me tell you a secret, little prince.” She spits the nickname now. Her face has gone from a caricature of sexy/sultry to enraged and violent. “You’re not always going to be in the castle. And as we can tell from dear old dead mommy,” her hand tightens on his neck as he struggles against the grip, “I don’t even have to be in the same room to kill you.”

“But. But why?” Stiles plays up the heartbroken child and tries to hide his rage. Kate cackles and throws him away from her. He stumbles back and adjusts his grip on the necklace.

“Are you stupid, kid? Can you not read? You saw the papers.” Kate smirks at him patronizingly.

“But why my mom? She didn’t do anything!” Stiles doesn’t have to fake the tears coming to his eyes. Kate cocks her head, smile still firmly planted on her face.

“She was too nosey for her own good. And she was a good bump for yours truly.” Stiles clenches his hands into fists.

“So you killed her like a coward. Snuck up on her on her trips to town to see her people and what? Blasted a curse at her back? You couldn’t even find the nerve to look her in the eyes as you killed her. You’re nothing more than a two-bit bandit. You’re a coward.” Stiles feels a force close around his entire neck, and he’s wrenched off the floor with it. He can’t breath. His hands scramble for his neck, and the locket he had been holding falls to the floor. Kate smirks at him.

“Cute.” She brings the heel of her boot down on it, cracking it. She gets up in Stiles’ face just as spots begin appearing in his vision. “Listen here, you little asshole. I took down the entire Hale werewolf pack. I killed one of the most well known magic users in the entire land. And I took all of their power and made it mine. Not getting caught isn’t cowardice. It’s brilliance.

“Now if I was you, I’d watch my _fucking_ tongue. After I kill your little pup and his pack, I will take over his territory. After that, well.” She smiles softly and strokes Stiles’ face before punching him and releasing the magic, sending him flying across the floor. Stiles gasps for breath. Kate walks over and crouches beside him, threads her fingers through his hair, and yanks his head to look at her. Stiles’ mouth throbs, and he tastes blood. His scalp prickles where she’s pulling.

“I don’t want to spoil the surprise daddy, Victoria, and I have in store. Don’t worry; I’m sure we can find some use for you in this plan. Maybe put your mouth to good use; something other than talking for once.” Stiles spits in her face. The bloody loogie hits her cheek. Kate wipes it away and shakes her head in disappointment. “We’ll get you trained soon enough.” She punches him twice more, once in the eye and once bring her fist down on his temple. His vision swims. Stiles hears the thuds of her boots leaving, but he doesn’t relax until he hears the click of the door shutting.

Stiles groans. His lip is split, and his eye is already swelling. He crawls over to the locket and holds it close to his chest. He presses the button that opens the locket and nearly cries in relief when he finds out it works. He’ll rest here, just for a minute, before dragging himself to his dad’s office.

\--

“Stiles? What the hell happened!?” Stiles’ face meets the crook of his dad’s neck. It hurts like hell because his face feels like it has been pulverized, but he finally feels the tension relax out of his shoulders.

“Just a minute, dad. Derek’s on his way.” At least he should be. Stiles did the magic ball thing again since it worked the first time. A hand cards through the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck. Stiles flinches at the feeling, and his dad freezes.

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbles. He pulls his face away from his dad’s shoulder when he hears solid footsteps coming up the hall. Derek stops as soon as he passes through the open door. His eyes bleed red, and he stalks up to Stiles.

“Stiles.” There’s a slight whimper in his voice. Derek’s hands shake as he reaches to lightly trace over Stiles’ forehead and down the line of his jaw.

“I’m okay,” Stiles says softly. Derek’s hands keep moving over the battered skin, so Stiles grabs them and forces Derek to look him in the eyes. “I’m okay, Derek. I’m okay.”

“And I, for one, would like to know what the hell is going on,” John interrupts. Derek jumps, seemingly has forgotten that the other king is in the room. Derek closes in on himself, folding his arms tightly to his chest, but he keeps his eyes trained on Stiles.

“Let’s sit down. It’s kind of a long story,” Stiles sighs.

They start from the beginning. His dad isn’t too happy about Stiles using his magic in front of Derek, but he doesn’t say too much on it. They tell him about the connection between the sabotage incidents and the Hale fire. Stiles tells them about using his mother’s energy to find the important things in the boxes. They tell John about Kate burning the papers and vaguely mentioning her involvement in Claudia’s murder. Stiles takes a deep breath before launching into what just happened. He swears he can still feel Kate’s magic around his neck during points of the story. Derek’s chair creaks as he clenches the armrests, and Stiles has to restrain himself from putting his hand on top of Derek’s because he’s not sure how his dad would respond after everything else that he’s hearing about tonight.

When Stiles finishes telling his tale, his father frowns.

“God, kid. You don’t do things by half measures.” John leans forward in his chair. “No more lies. You got that? I’m your father first and foremost. We’re a team, and I will always be on your side. Do you understand me?” Stiles nods and feels his cheeks heat up. They normally don’t talk about this kind of thing, let alone in front of other people. John nods as well and leans back in his chair again. He’s still frowning.

“Now, I can kick Kate out of our land and put a ban on her for what she did to you, but we don’t have any evidence about the other stuff. As much as I want to strike her down where she stands, we can’t afford a war right now, especially with the Argents. They have the biggest army I’ve ever seen.” Stiles smiles slightly and then winces when his lip splits open again. Derek glares at Stiles, so he rolls his eyes at Derek.

“I’m fine. Especially because I got the proof you’re looking for.” Stiles smirks when both of them look at him in surprise. He digs his mother’s locket out of his pocket and passes it to his dad.

“Your mother’s locket? I don’t understand.”

“Press the button on top.” His dad does as he’s told, and immediately Kate’s voice fills the room.

_“I’ve got to say, you have caught my attention. Surprises all around.”_ He clicks the button again, and it stops. Stiles reclines in his chair with his arms behind his head.

“I’m fucking awesome and magical, I know.”

“Language,” his dad says absently. He stares at the locket for moment before smiling softly.

“I figured it’d be poetic in a sense,” Stiles says delicately. “In the end, she’s the one to put the final nail in the coffin for both the Hale murders and her’s.”

“She would’ve liked it. She would’ve been so proud of you, son.” Stiles stares at the ground, forcing himself not to tear up. Oh, well. If he did, he could blame the black eye. “I’ll take care of this, you go see Melissa.” Stiles looks up to protest that he’s fine but his dad looks to Derek. “Make sure he gets there. Also, I don’t care if we go to war, you hurt him, you’re a dead man. Understand?” Derek nods seriously and holds out his hand to John, which takes him by surprise. They shake hands in front of Stiles’ horrified face.

“Okay, I’m going now. Bye!” He rushes from the room but slows until he feels Derek beside him. Derek puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, stopping him.

Derek looks even better in the soft glow of the lamps and the moonlight shining in through the windows of the hallway. His hair is soft on his forehead, and it looks like he forgot to shave today. It looks good. He looks good.

“Never do that again.” And then Stiles is in Derek’s arms. Derek clutches at Stiles’ waist in a way that Stiles knows means bruises, but he’s completely okay with that. He’d rather have Derek related bruises than any other kind. Stiles grips Derek’s neck, the wolf pelt soft against his arms. He feels Derek take a deep breath at Stiles’ neck, so he tilts his head to give Derek more room. Derek noses there a bit more before he relaxes his hold a little. They stand there, in the middle of the hallway with no shits given, and just hold each other. Yeah, Stiles thinks they’ll be great.

 

_-Six Months Later-_

“You just need to feel it, Lydia. Don’t force it. Encourage it. Will it to happen.”

“You sound like a bad self-help book,” Lydia snaps. They’re in the Hale castle where Stiles is fulfilling his promise to Lydia. Amongst other things.

A lot has changed in the last six months. The night Stiles gave his dad the locket, John confronted the Argents with Derek. Gerard tried throwing the whole thing on Kate even though she mentioned him when doing her villain monologue. She turned on him, and in the end, John had to call the guards to separate them.

They decided prison for all involved and handed Chris the crown. He was heartbroken at his family and wife being thrown into prison, but he seemed to have accepted their fate long ago. He took it gracefully and promised to be a better role model for his daughter who would take the crown one day. They’ll keep a close eye on him for a while, but everything seemed to be going better in the Argent territory.

Stiles got to drain all of the stolen power from Kate. In the end, she was left with only enough power to make tinctures if she had the right ingredients. Which she won’t. Because prison. Stiles was happy to do it if it meant his mother’s power wouldn’t be used for evil anymore. And he didn’t take any of the power he drained; his own magic is good enough for him. He just released it out to the universe. He hopes that wherever his mom may be that she feels a bit better about everything.

Derek and Stiles started officially ‘courting.’ Gods, that word still makes Stiles nauseous. He likes Derek, Derek likes him (most of the time), and one day, Stiles could see ruling with Derek at his side. He’s not one hundred percent sure how that’ll work, but they’ll figure it out like they always do.

Oh, Derek’s using the castle now instead of roaming the land. Stiles thought that everyone in Derek’s core group was going to kiss him when Derek stated that they were going back to the Hale castle for good after they left the Stilinski castle. Derek misses being able to talk to the people of his territory so directly, but he does out once a week to try and talk to as many people as possible.

A book hits Stiles in the face.

“Yes!” Lydia squeals before she restrains herself back into her apathetic façade. A hint of a smirk still dances on her lips.

“Try not to hit his face too much. I’m rather fond of it,” Derek says from behind Stiles. His own magic wells up and wraps around Derek in greeting as Derek leans down and kisses Stiles’ temple.

“Almost done?” Derek asks softly, directly in Stiles’ ear.

“I can be done right now if you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Stiles replies immediately. Derek chuckles.

“Eager.”

“I’m only here for two more days, Derek. We have a lot to get done in a lot of different positions before I got.” He feels Derek’s smile against his head as Lydia groans.

“Derek, quit stealing my teacher! I need to learn all that I can before he goes. Derek!” Derek throws Stiles over his shoulder, and Lydia’s shouts are drown out by their laughter. Yeah, Stiles thinks as Derek sets him down to kiss him slow and thorough just like Stiles likes it, they’re pretty amazing together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Again, make sure to go check out the artwork by hd-hale, and go see the rest of the stuff in the collection! Come say hi at my [tumblr](http://www.sydburf.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
